Emergency response vehicles are used to transport personnel and materials to a wide variety of situations or incidents. Such vehicles (police cars, ambulances, rapid deployment vehicles, command units and other land-based vehicles) and the personnel that staff them increasingly rely on storing video and audio as personnel address the situation or incident, thereby increasing the safety of personnel, assisting with solving crimes, and providing training aids. Emergency response vehicles may include multiple video cameras, microphones, and other data capturing devices, and the information captured by such devices can be combined by a server in the vehicle into an integrated data stream. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,831,556 teaches a system for capturing and storing video, audio and data legal evidence information using devices such as video cameras, microphones and sensors. In such a system, the captured information is combined into a single, integrated data stream. The integrated data stream is stored in the vehicle and then transferred to a second location.
Historically, wireless recording devices were limited to the range of the local wireless communications system. Further, at least some wireless systems were limited in that communications needed to be according to a “line-of-sight” transmission. Still further, some systems may require “registration” of the data collection devices, or some other advance coordination or setup, before a given device may become engaged or otherwise involved in the incident. Yet further, some systems may require manual intervention or manual activation of a device by persons involved in the incident before the data collection device is engaged or otherwise becomes relevant to an incident. In many cases an incident involves multiple emergency response vehicles and multiple personnel (e.g., officers, medical technicians, etc.) responding to the incident at various times and stages of the incident, often such other personnel have their own vehicle with its own server with one or more wired and wireless video cameras, audio microphones, and personal body cameras. The legal evidence video, audio, and metadata captured by devices associated with each of the emergency response vehicles, including personal body cameras, audio microphones and any other, data capturing devices involved in the incident, are all logically part of (or addressing) the overall incident, even though such video cameras, microphones, personal body cameras, video drones, and other data capturing devices may be associated with different vehicle servers or operate independently of any particular emergency response vehicle server. In addition, there are often fixed location security cameras, microphones, gunshot audio triangulation location reporting systems, and other legal evidence gathering devices in the vicinity of the incident.
An incident may also span across multiple locations. Particularly in the case of a pursuit, there may be video, audio, and metadata legal evidence information captured by fixed location video cameras and/or audio microphones, helicopters, aircraft, video drones, license plate recognition systems, gunshot detection and location technology systems and other devices that capture legal evidence information (i.e., video, audio and metadata) relevant to the incident. As another example, a pursuit may pass near a fixed location video camera or microphone, or other fixed location or mobile device, which might capture data relevant to the incident. It would be desirable to include legal evidence data from all recording devices, including vehicle-based video, audio and metadata devices, personal body cameras, other mobile devices, and/or any fixed location video, audio, and metadata data capture devices that are in the vicinity of an incident into an overall integrated data stream for the incident. It would be useful for all video, audio and metadata legal evidence data collection devices which are at some point within the vicinity of an incident to be logically tied or otherwise a part of the incident, and therefore, a part of any integrated data stream of data concerning the incident.
It is known that systems for capturing video, audio and other legal evidence data in emergency response vehicles may be activated manually by a first responder or automatically upon activation of a separate device, such as a police car light bar or a siren. In addition, legal evidence video may be buffered before an incident or event occurs, and recorded for permanent storage once the incident or event occurs. Often actions relevant to an incident occur before the first responder is aware that an incident is in progress. For example, an officer may observe a vehicle approaching or passing by at high speed, see a crash, notice suspicious behavior or a crime in progress, and then react by turning on a police car light bar or siren, removing a weapon from a storage rack, pressing the video system record button, or taking some other action that triggers the system to start recording an incident. Pre-event buffering allows video from, for example, 30 or 60 seconds before recording was actually triggered to be stored. The vehicle's video cameras, audio microphones, personal body cameras, and other devices associated with the vehicle can continuously record and buffer a set data quantity or elapsed time of video, audio, and metadata. When a triggering event occurs, the prior 30 or 60 seconds of pre-event video, audio, and/or metadata can be stored.
It would be desirable to also capture and store pre-event legal evidence data captured by other vehicle system devices, mobile devices, personal body cameras, and fixed location video cameras and microphones that are in the vicinity of the incident. For example, a suspect vehicle may have very recently passed by a second first responder vehicle, fixed location video camera, or beat officer walking near the incident with a personal body camera, any of which that were also continuously recording and buffering pre-event data, but did not have a direct triggering event. A person of interest might have taken some action out of view of a police car before rounding a corner, but was within view of a second police car, officer with a personal body camera attached to their clothing, or a fixed location video security camera. It would be desirable to also capture and integrate pre-event legal evidence data from these other mobile and fixed location cameras, microphones and other data capturing devices into an integrated data stream for the incident even though the other vehicle server, personal body cameras, or fixed location cameras were not be directly triggered to save the pre-event data.
As a further example, an officer in a different vehicle in the vicinity of an incident may not have directly observed an event or action that would have prompted turning on the video recorder system, and therefore the vehicle system would not save pre-event data. In another example, an officer walking a beat in the vicinity of an incident may not have personally noticed any initial events related to the incident, so the officer's personal body camera would not be triggered to save buffered pre-event data. In these examples and others, buffered pre-event data from nearby vehicles, personal body cameras, mobile devices, or fixed location devices might be overwritten and lost, even though some or all of this buffered pre-event data might provide legal evidence and capture a record of facts that are relevant to the incident. It would be desirable to have a triggering event in one device propagate to other video, audio, and metadata capture devices in the vicinity of an incident, so that pre-event data from additional devices in the vicinity would capture data that would potentially be legal evidence.
Moreover, outside of a planned stakeout involving multiple vehicles and first responders, it is often not possible to know in advance which vehicle, personal body camera, mobile device, and fixed location video cameras and microphones might capture legal evidence video, audio, and metadata relevant to an incident. Vehicles, personal body camera, other mobile devices, and fixed location cameras that were not pre-assigned or dispatched to the incident might still become involved in the incident without any advance notice. The evolution of events in any incident is impossible to predict in advance, so there is no way to predict in advance which video, audio, and/or metadata devices might be nearby the location of and relevant to an incident. So in most cases it is not possible to pre-register or otherwise logically associate nearby cameras, personal body cameras, microphones, and other devices in advance of the incident. It would be useful to have a method to notify and trigger the start of data capture from one or multiple video, audio, or metadata collection devices in the vicinity of an incident. It would further be useful to provide a means to trigger the retention of pre-event legal evidence data in any nearby but previously unassociated recording or capturing devices, including, for example, video cameras, personal body cameras, audio microphones, mobile devices, fixed location devices, and/or other video, audio, and metadata collecting devices, so that such unknown and previously unassociated devices could also contribute video, audio, and metadata legal evidence that could be relevant to an incident in progress and included in an overall integrated data stream.
As explained above, it is difficult to predict in advance which video, audio, and metadata devices might be nearby a location of and relevant to a particular incident. As an incident progresses, it would be useful to have a device that is in the incident in progress (i.e., capturing data relevant to the incident) notify other devices that the incident is in progress within the vicinity so that such other devices can determine to join (or not to join) the incident. For example, it would be useful for the first responder's (e.g., police officer's) personal body camera, wireless microphone or other data collective device to provide notification of an incident in progress so that other devices can determine if they are within the vicinity on the incident in progress and, if so, trigger recording in these now nearby other devices. Further, it would be useful and would increase officer safety for police vehicle servers, personal body cameras, wireless microphones and other devices involved around an incident to report real-time metadata such as current location and status, as well as selectively stream video and audio data, to a central facility such a central Situational Awareness Command and Control Dispatch Center, a Video Integration Center, and back to vehicle servers and other data collection devices involved in a incident. This would be useful to provide real time visibility and a map-based view of the location and status of all devices that have become involved in an incident. An example would be a real-time location and status report from an officer's personal body camera to a laptop computer (or tablet display) in a police vehicle so that an officer in the vehicle would be able to see the real time location of his or her partner who was involved in a foot chase and is beyond visual view from the vehicle.
As shown by the foregoing, it would be desirable for a device, particularly a mobile device, to automatically and continually broadcast location and status metadata, and the direction of travel if in motion, without manual effort or intervention by the first responder. Police officers and other first responders in the field should not be distracted by having to perform location identification and reporting tasks. It would be useful to provide a system that was capable of including all video, audio and/or metadata legal evidence from all mobile and fixed location devices that come within the vicinity of an active incident to be included within the integrated video, audio and metadata legal evidence stream for an incident. It would be further useful if such inclusion could occur on an ad hoc and autonomous basis as an incident evolves, without requiring any advance “registration” or other advance coordination and set up, or manual action by persons involved in the incident.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming these problems and other issues in the prior art.